3 The Department of Music presents The Empyrean Ensemble Mika Pelo and Kurt Rohde, co-directors New Music from the British Isles Lullaby The Riot Equilibrium Program Mary Artmann, cello Mika Pelo, electronics Tod Brody, flute Peter Josheff, bass clarinet Michael Seth Orland, piano Ellen Ruth Rose, solo viola; Tod Brody, flute; Peter Josheff, clarinet Chris Froh, percussion; Hrabba Atladottir, violin; Mary Artmann, cello Michael Seth Orland, piano Matilda Hofman, conductor Elspeth Brooke (b. 1981) Jonathan Harvey (b. 1939) Stuart MacRae (b. 1976) Intermission String Quartet Sentinel of the Rainbow Hrabba Atladottir and Benjamin Kreith, violin Ellen Ruth Rose, viola Mary Artmann, cello Tod Brody, flute; Peter Josheff, clarinet Chris Froh, percussion; Hrabba Atladottir, violin and viola; Mary Artmann, cello Michael Seth Orland, piano and celesta Matilda Hofman, conductor The Empyrean Ensemble would like to thank Peter Josheff and Eliza O Malley for the use of their home for rehearsals. Naomi Pinnock (b. 1979) Robert Saxton (b. 1953) November 17, :00 pm Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts We ask that you be courteous to your fellow audience members and the performers. Please turn off your cell phones and refrain from texting. Audience members who are distracting to their neighbors or the performers in any way may be asked to leave at any time. Also, this performance is being professionally recorded for the university archive. Photography, audio, or audiovisual recording is prohibited during the performance.

4 NOTES Elspeth Brooke: Lullaby The piece starts with a simple melody in the Lydian mode. The melodies develop out from the opening, becoming more chromatic and using a combination of double stopping and harmonics on the cello. The middle section develops into an improvised climax, layering up prerecorded cello with the live cello playing. The final section of the piece returns to the still, calm mood of the opening. The electronics for the piece work through a Max/MSP patch that processes the live cello notes and creates a granulated electronic echo of them. Elspeth Brooke Elspeth Brooke is a London-based composer, educator, and performer. She studied composition at Cambridge University and at the Royal Academy of Music. Her music has been performed at the Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Sadler s Wells, the Aldeburgh Festival, the Spitalfields Festival, the Al- Bustan Festival and broadcast on BBC Radio 3, by performers including the London Symphony Orchestra, Kuss Quartet, Britten Sinfonia, CoMA, The Clerks, Exaudi, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Colin Currie, Sarah Nicolls, and Oliver Coates. Jonathan Harvey: The Riot The Riot, first performed March 1994 at St. George s Brandon Hill, Bristol by the Het Trio, is a work in which virtuoso exhilaration is predominant. The game is to throw around themes which retain their identity sufficiently to bounce off each other sharply, even when combined polyphonically or mixed up together in new configurations. Each theme belongs to a distinctive harmonic field characterized by about two intervals; for example, the first is based on fourths and whole tones creating also minor sevenths and, as a further development, linear unfoldings in circles of fourths (or fifths). From time to time energy runs out and a mechanical repetition of an element takes over, dying away like an electronic delay. Such a process in extended form provides the ending. Jonathan Harvey Commissioned by the University of Bristol music department for the HET TRIO, with funding in part by South West Arts for the Colston Symposium in Born in Warwickshire in 1939, Jonathan Harvey was a chorister at St. Michael s College, Tenbury and later a major music scholar at St John s College, Cambridge. He gained doctorates from the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge and (on the advice of Benjamin Britten) studied privately with Erwin Stein and Hans Keller. He was a Harkness Fellow at Princeton ( ), professor of music at Sussex University ( ); and professor of music at Stanford University ( ). He is an Honorary Fellow of St. John s College, Cambridge, and was a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin in An invitation from Boulez to work at IRCAM in the early 1980s set the composer on a path that has characterized his whole career, resulting in eight realizations at the Institute, and two for the Ensemble Intercontemporain, including the celebrated tape piece Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco, Bhakti for ensemble and electronics, and String Quartet No. 4, with live electronics. Harvey has also composed for orchestra Tranquil Abiding, White as Jasmine, and Madonna of Winter and Spring; chamber groups: four string quartets, Soleil Noir/Chitra, and Death of Light, Light of Death; as well as works for solo instruments. He has written many widely performed unaccompanied works for choir as well as the large-scale cantata for the BBC Proms Millennium, Mothers Shall Not Cry (2000). His church opera Passion and Resurrection (l981) was the subject of a BBC television film and received seventeen subsequent performances. His opera Inquest of Love, commissioned by ENO, was premiered under the baton of Mark Elder in 1993 and repeated at Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels, in His third opera, Wagner Dream, commissioned by Nederlandse Oper and realized at IRCAM was premiered to great acclaim in A recording of this performance has been released on Cyprus Records. Wagner Dream has also been performed in London s Barbican Hall with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Martyn Brabbins. A further staging is planned by Welsh National Opera in 2013 with conductor Nicholas Collon. The year 2008 saw the premiere of Messages (for the Rundfunkchor Berlin and the Berlin Philharmoniker; in 2012 it won the RPS Award for Large Scale Composition). Speakings was the culmination of his residency ( ) with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, as was Body Mandala and... Towards a Pure Land. Harvey s works are now in constant demand from a host of international organizations and extensively played and toured by the major ensembles including Musikfabrik, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, ASKO, Nieuw Ensemble of Amsterdam, and Ictus Ensemble. Some performances are given or broadcast each year, and about 100 recordings of his music are issued on CD. He has honorary doctorates from the Universities of Southampton, Sussex, Bristol, Birmingham, and Huddersfield, is a member of Academia Europaea, and in 1993 was awarded the prestigious Britten Award for composition. In 2007 he was awarded the Giga-Hertz Prize for a lifetime s work in electronic music and received the prestigious Prince Pierre of Monaco Prize in Musical Composition in 2009 for his orchestral work Speakings, and the Charles Cros Grand Prix du Président for a lifetime s work, becoming the first British composer to receive this coveted honor since its inception in Harvey s standing in his seventieth year was widely celebrated in the international musical community with dedicated concerts, new recordings, festival focuses, and composer portraits. In October 2011 his major large-scale commission Weltethos (orchestra, choir, and children s chorus) for the Berliner Philharmoniker to a text by Swiss ethicist Hans Kueng 4

5 NOTES was premiered in Berlin. Weltethos also opened the Cultural Olympiad festival in Birmingham s Symphony Hall in June 2012 by the CBSO and was performed at London s Southbank Centre in October The BBC marked its appreciation of Harvey s international standing this year with a weekend dedicated to his music at the Barbican. The Total Immersion festival featured many of his major works, including the British concert premiere of Wagner Dream. Stuart MacRae: Equilibrium From the beginning of Equilibrium the solo viola is at its most expressive (in the traditional sense), playing a long decorated line which weaves through all parts of the instrument s range. Apart from the brief opening outburst, the ensemble takes only a very small supporting role in this passage. From this initial point of simplicity, the piece begins to destroy its own material in various ways: through imitation, repetition, digression, deconstruction, delayed resolution, distortion, and negation. This expressive identity of the viola s opening material is constantly called into question and redefined. The role of the viola as soloist is given successively less emphasis at the start of each of the three movements, and within each movement the material of the viola and its status are progressively diminished. Thus the piece brings the relationship between the viola and the ensemble, which at first was distinct but not antagonistic, into a state of equilibrium, while the transformed material takes on a more elusive, perhaps contemplative character more suited to this new state of affairs. Stuart MacRae Commissioned by the Kreisler Ensemble with support from the PRS Foundation, the RVW Trust, the Britten-Pears Foundation and Christoph Trestler. Stuart MacRae was born in Inverness, Scotland, in After reading music at Durham University with Philip Cashian, Sohrab Uduman, and Michael Zev Gordon, he studied composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Simon Bainbridge and Robert Saxton. Often inspired by aspects of the natural landscape, MacRae s musical style draws on various strands of European modernism, including the music of Carter and Xenakis as well as Maxwell Davies. MacRae came to public attention as a finalist in the 1996 Lloyd s Bank Young Composer s Workshop when the BBC Philharmonic gave the first professional performance of Boreraig, a piece inspired by a visit to a deserted village on the Isle of Skye. From 1999 to 2003, MacRae was composer in association with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He was Edinburgh Festival Creative Fellow ( ) and held a residency at Villa Concordia in Bamberg ( ). The premiere of his Violin Concerto in 2001 brought MacRae wider public recognition. Following its premiere by Tasmin Little at the BBC Proms, it was performed at the Edinburgh Festival and the Festival Musica in Strasbourg and has subsequently been recorded by Christian Tetzlaff on NMC Records. The Violin Concerto proved a catalyst for further success, beginning with Ancrene Wisse (2002), a setting of Middle English texts for soprano, female chorus, and orchestra. Hamartia (2003), for cello and strings, explores the ancient Greek concept of a tragic flaw. The piece was premiered by the Scottish Ensemble and Liwei Qin on its 2004 spring tour and performed again at the BBC Proms in Three Pictures, commissioned by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 2004, depicts a series of imaginary landscapes, while in Two Scenes from the Death of Count Ugolino (2004) a mezzo-soprano soloist brings to life two grotesque passages from Dante s Inferno. A second work for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Birches (2007), draws its inspiration from closer to home, recalling elements of the landscape of the Scottish Highlands. The premiere of Gaudete at the 2008 BBC Proms demonstrated a significant development in MacRae s musical language. The piece, a 28-minute setting of poetry by Ted Hughes, was performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and soprano Susanna Andersson, conducted by Edward Gardner. The Times wrote that MacRae has thrillingly given Hughes s work a new incarnation. Blood, granite, oak and bone were imprinted anew on the imagination through the heightened experience of music. His one-act opera The Assassin Tree (2006) was co-commissioned by the Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Opera House. Featuring a libretto by Simon Armitage, its premiere production was directed by Emio Greco and Pieter Scholten. Echo and Narcissus, MacRae s first work for dance, a collaboration with choreographer Cathy Marston, was presented at the Linbury Studio of the Royal Opera House in May The premiere of Remembrance Day, a chamber opera to a libretto by Louise Welsh, was commissioned in 2009 as part of Scottish Opera s Five:15 series. Stuart MacRae is published exclusively by Novello & Co. Naomi Pinnock: String Quartet The subtitle could easily be luminis (a light, an opening), lucere (shine), or lux (light). While I was composing I often thought about this image of light: an intense light source and, further away, a light that was much softer and paler. That is what the piece gradually became about a set of three slow, luminous but fragile variations around a fiery core. Naomi Pinnock Naomi Pinnock comes from Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. She studied in London at King s College London with Harrison Birtwistle, at the Royal Academy of Music with Brian Elias, and with Wolfgang Rihm at the Hochschule für Musik, Karlsruhe, Germany. She has received commissions from and performances at the Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Huddersfield Contemporary 5

6 NOTES Music Festival, ECLAT Festival Stuttgart, Heidelberger Frühling Festival, ZKM Karlsruhe, Festival Musica Strasbourg, Festival les Musiques Marseille, Spitalfields Festival London, unerhörte musik concert series in Berlin, Arditti Quartet, London Sinfonietta, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Ensemble Linea, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Beat Furrer, Omar Ebrahim, Rolf Hind, and Frode Haltli. Her music has been broadcast on SWR 2 Radio, WDR 3 Radio, BBC Radio 3, and Bayern 2 Radio. In 2010 she was the winner of the Berlin- Rheinsberger Kompositionspreis. Current projects include a new work for Schola Heidelberg vocal ensemble. She currently lives in Berlin. Robert Saxton: Sentinel of the Rainbow The title is both descriptive and structural the descriptive aspect of the piece refers to Heimdal, one of the gods of Teutonic mythology. He not only was the god of light, but also personified the rainbow and presided over the beginnings of things over the prima rather than the summa. He was the guardian of the gods and was always found near the bridge of the Bifröst the rainbow which led from the dwelling place of men to that of the gods, and he was their divine sentinel. He could see at night as easily as in the day and owned a trumpet, which could be heard all round the earth. In the music much emphasis is placed on high bright sounds which contrast with deeper ones, characterizing in sound Heimdall s dual qualities of brightness and power. At a structural level the piece sets out with high clear sound stating a rhythmic scheme that, in augmentation and diminution, plays an important role throughout. As the music gathers momentum, the instruments trace gradually ascending paths. The bass clarinet moves upwards to the E clarinet just as the flute s melodic line is transformed into the music of a high dancing character on the piccolo. The two string instruments also trace an ascending path as a duo, the piano following suit until the whole ensemble reaches a high bright section, which, after a speedy descent, rises once more only to fall in torrents into a sustained section that returns finally to the opening. The general shape of each instrument s melodic line and indeed the contour of the piece as a whole have thus traced a series of non-symmetrical arches, and at the close the whole process is heard beginning again, mirroring Heimdal s role as the symbol of all that is to be born anew. It was first performed by the Fire of London in the Bloomsbury Theatre as part of the Contemporary Network Tour. Robert Saxton (August, 1984) After early encouragement and advice from Benjamin Britten, Robert Saxton studied with Elisabeth Lutyens, then at St. Catharine s College, Cambridge, with Peter le Huray and Robin Holloway. He was a postgraduate student at Worcester College Oxford with Robert Sherlaw Johnson and studied with Luciano Berio from 1976 to 1978, and received first prize for composition at the Gaudeamus festival, Holland, in He was awarded a Fulbright as a visiting fellow at Princeton ( ) and has been a lecturer at Bristol University, Head of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, Head of Composition and Contemporary Music, Royal Academy of Music, London, lecturer and fellow and tutor in music at Worcester College, Oxford since Saxton was a member of Board of Directors, South Bank Centre, London. He has written works for the BBC (Proms, Radio and TV), LPO, LSO, English Chamber Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota, Northern Sinfonia, London Sinfonietta, Opera North, Fires of London, Nash Ensemble, Chilingirian String Quartet, Choirs of St. Paul s Cathedral London, and Christ Church Oxford, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Harrogate, Huddersfield, Lichfield and Three Choirs Festivals and for Teresa Cahill, Leon Fleisher, Steven Isserlis, Mstislav Rostropovich, Paul Silverthorne, John Wallace, Raphael Wallfisch, the Clerks Group and ABRSM. The Wandering Jew (radio opera), commissioned by BBC Radio 3, premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers in 2010, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 s Performance on 3 and released on NMC recordings in His Quartet No. 3 was commissioned by the Southbank Centre and premiered by the Arditti Quartet in 2011, with a further performance at the Sounds New Festival in May 2012 and recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3 s Hear and Now. Future commissions include: Scenes from Shakespeare, a Trumpet Concerto commissioned by Simon Desbruslais and the Orchestra of the Swan, to be premiered in June 2013; Time and the Seasons, a song cycle commissioned by the Oxford Lieder Festival for Roderick Williams (baritone) and Andrew West (piano); and a new piano cycle for pianist Clare Hammond. Saxton s compositions are published by Chester Music/Music Music Sales and University of York Music Press and have been recorded under the labels EMI, Sony Classical, NMC, Hyperion, Metier, Cala, Collins Classics, and Lammas. Commissioned by The Fires of London with funds from the Arts Council of Great Britain; first published by Chester Music, Ltd. 6

7 ABOUT THE ARTISTS Cellist Mary Artmann joined the Veronika String Quartet, in residence at Colorado State University, Pueblo, in Currently engaged in building the string and chamber music program at the university, she has a thriving cello studio. Artmann graduated with high distinction from UC Berkeley and received her Master of Music degree from the University of Southern California. She completed postgraduate work at Oberlin College Conservatory and Kent State University and was twice the recipient of the Alfred Hertz Memorial Traveling Fellowship. A champion of new music, she also has an interest in early music, performing on viola da gamba with the University of Southern California s Early Music Ensemble, the Oberlin Consort, and the Buffalo Consort of Viols. Former member of the Slee Sinfonietta and the Scandinavian Chamber Orchestra of New York, she is principal cellist with the Pueblo Symphony and has performed with the Buffalo and Rochester Philharmonics. Icelandic violinist Hrabba Atladottir studied in Berlin with Axel Gerhardt. After finishing her studies, she worked as a freelance violinist in Berlin for five years, regularly playing with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Oper, and Deutsche Symphonieorchester. She also participated in a world tour with the Icelandic pop artist Björk, and a Germany tour with violinist Nigel Kennedy. In 2004 she moved to New York and continued to freelance, playing on a regular basis with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Orchestra of St. Luke s, and New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. She also plays a lot of new music, most recently with the Either/Or ensemble in New York in connection with their Helmut Lachenmann festival. Since August 2008, she has been based in Berkeley, California, where she performs with various ensembles, such as the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Empyrean Ensemble, and the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players to name a few. Atladottir is also a violin lecturer at UC Berkeley. Tod Brody, flute, has enjoyed a career of great variety. He was a member of the Sacramento Symphony for many years, where he was a frequent soloist on both flute and piccolo. He currently teaches flute and chamber music at UC Davis, where he performs with the Empyrean Ensemble. As a member of Empyrean, Earplay, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Brody has participated in many world premieres and has been recorded on the Arabesque, Capstone, Centaur, CRI, Magnon, and New World labels. When not performing contemporary music, he often can be found in the orchestras of the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Ballet, and in other chamber and orchestral settings throughout Northern California. In addition to his activities as a performer and teacher, Brody is the director of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the American Composers Forum, an organization dedicated to linking communities, composers, and performers, encouraging the making, playing, and enjoyment of new music. Principally committed to influencing and expanding the repertoire for solo percussion through commissions and premieres, Chris Froh is a member of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and the Empyrean Ensemble. Known for energized performances hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as tremendous and San Francisco Classical Voice as mesmerizing, his solo appearances stretch from Rome to Tokyo to San Francisco. His critically acclaimed solo recordings can be heard on the Albany, Bridge, Equilibrium, and Innova labels. A frequent collaborator with leading composers from across the globe, Froh has premiered works by dozens of composers, including John Adams, Chaya Czernowin, Liza Lim, David Lang, Keiko Abe, and Francois Paris. He tours Japan with marimbist Mayumi Hama and with his former teacher and marimba pioneer Keiko Abe. Solo festival appearances include the Festival Nuovi Spazi Musicali (Rome), the Festival of New American Music, Pacific Rim, and Other Minds. Active in music for theater and dance, Froh has recorded scores for American Conservatory Theater, performed as a soloist with the Berkeley Repertory Theater, and composed original music for Oakland-based Dance Elixir. His score for the Harvard Museum of Natural History s exhibition of Thoreau s Walden: A Journey in Photography currently is touring the United States. Equally committed to pedagogy, Froh mentors percussionists through UC Berkeley s Young Musicians Program. He is also a faculty member at UC Davis, where he directs the Samba School and Percussion Group Davis. Matilda Hofman s work as a conductor ranges widely from opera and the symphonic repertoire to her keen interest in contemporary music. She studied at Cambridge University, the Royal Academy of Music, and the Eastman School of Music. She works in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom and was recently invited to conduct the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra in their New Music Festival, which was broadcast on CBC radio. Operas conducted include Le nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte, Turn of the Screw, as well as contemporary commissions. She has worked with the BBC Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Nash Ensemble, and Southbank Sinfonia, among others. She is passionate about bringing music to young people and to underprivileged communities. While studying at 7

8 ABOUT THE ARTISTS Eastman she was music director of the New Eastman Outreach Orchestra, making classical music available to everyone in the Rochester community. During her tenure she developed a longterm program with the inner-city School of the Arts, which involved regular mentoring, education concerts, and side-bysides. She has studied with David Zinman as a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, with Sir Colin Davis, Martyn Brabbins, and with Kurt Masur. Peter Josheff, composer and clarinetist, is a founding member of Sonic Harvest and of Earplay. He is also a member of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Empyrean Ensemble, the Eco Ensemble, and the Paul Dresher Ensemble. He has performed with many other groups, including Melody of China and sf Sound, and has appeared as a clarinetist on numerous recordings, concert series, and festivals, both nationally and internationally. His recent compositions include Nautical Man Nautical Man (2011); Sutro Tower in the Fog (2011), commissioned, premiered, and recorded by the Bernal Hill Players; Sextet (2010); Caught between Two Worlds (2009), both premiered by Sonic Harvest; Inferno (2008), a chamber opera produced by San Francisco Cabaret Opera in 2009; Viola and Mallets (2007), commissioned and premiered by the Empyrean Ensemble; House and Garden Tales (2006), 3 Hands (2003), and Diary (2002). His work has been performed by Earplay, the Empyrean Ensemble, the Bernal Hill Players, the Laurel Ensemble, San Francisco Cabaret Opera, Sonic Harvest. He is currently writing a new work for Earplay to be premiered in March He has worked extensively with young composers, and through discussion and performance of their music he has brought his unique perspective as a composer s clarinetist to graduate and undergraduate classes at UC Berkeley and UC Davis, Stanford University, San Francisco State University, and Sacramento State University, and for the American Composers Forum Composer in the Schools Program. His workshop, Clarinet for Composers, has been presented at the UC Davis Clarinet Festival and at an American Composers Forum seminar in San Francisco. Benjamin Kreith, violin, is coconcertmaster of the Great Falls Symphony, violinist of the Cascade Quartet, and an active performer of chamber music in both the United States and Europe. He has played recitals at the Juan March Foundation in Madrid, the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon, and the American Academy in Rome and has premiered solo violin works at the contemporary music festivals in Marseille and Strasbourg. His live recording of Christian Lauba s Kwintus for violin solo was released on the Accord/Universal CD Morphing. Kreith cofounded the Ensemble Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, a group recognized for its innovative chamber series in Santiago de Compostela. He has also played with the Harvard Group for New Music, Barcelona 216, and as guest artist with the Ying Quartet, the Muir Quartet and friends, and the Österreichisches Ensemble für neue Musik in Salzburg. With Alea III and conductor Gunther Schuller, he appeared as soloist in the U.S. premiere of Schulhoff s Concerto for String Quartet. He was 2006 artist-in-residence at the University of California, Davis, where he performed Alban Berg s Violin Concerto, and has been featured as concerto soloist with the Butte, Sacramento, and New England Conservatory symphony orchestras. He studied violin principally with Jorja Fleezanis, Malcolm Lowe, and Lorand Fenyves, as well as chamber music with Louis Krasner and has taught at the Escola de Música de Barcelona and the Escuela Maese Pedro in Madrid. Michael Seth Orland has appeared extensively in the Bay Area as a chamber musician, playing with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Earplay, the Empyrean Ensemble, the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, New Music Theater, Other Minds, and in the San Francisco Symphony s New and Unusual Music series. He has performed modern works throughout California at venues including UC campuses at San Diego, Davis, and Santa Cruz, and at Sacramento State University, and Cal Arts. He has also played at June in Buffalo (NY), the Mendocino Music Festival, and in the Gund Series at Kenyon College. Orland may be heard on recordings of contemporary music released by CRI, Centaur, and Capstone. Orland studied piano with Margaret Kohn in Claremont, CA, and is a graduate of the UC Berkeley Music Department, where he studied harpsichord with Davitt Moroney and composition with Gérard Grisey. He later continued his study of composition with David Sheinfeld. Orland has appeared often as a freelance symphony musician and has performed many times as a pianist in vocal recitals, as well as in vocal master classes by artists such as Frederica von Stade. Orland teaches in the music departments at UC Berkeley and UC Davis. A champion of contemporary music, violist Ellen Ruth Rose is a member of Empyrean Ensemble and Earplay, the San Francisco-based contemporary ensemble. She performs regularly with Santa Cruz New Music Works, the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and has worked extensively with Frankfurt s Ensemble Modern and the Cologne experimental ensembles Musik Fabrik and Thürmchen Ensemble, appearing at the Cologne Triennial, Berlin Biennial, Salzburg Zeitfluß, Brussels Ars Nova, Venice Biennial, Budapest Autumn, and Kuhmo (Finland) festivals. She has performed as soloist with 8

9 ABOUT THE ARTISTS the West German Radio Chorus, Empyrean Ensemble, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Santa Cruz New Music Works, the symphony orchestras of UC Berkeley and UC Davis, and at the San Francisco Other Minds and Ojai Music festivals. Rose has premiered several works showcasing the viola, including compositions by Kurt Rohde (Double Trouble) and Pablo Ortiz (Le Vrai Tango Argentin). Her recordings include a Wergo CD of the chamber music of German composer Caspar Johannes Walter, which won the German Recording Critics new music prize in In 2003 she created, organized, and directed Violafest!, a four-concert festival at UC Davis celebrating the viola in solos and chamber music new and old. Rose holds a Master s degree in performance from the Juilliard School, an artist diploma from the Northwest German Music Academy, and a Bachelor s with honors in English and American history and literature from Harvard University. She teaches viola at UC Davis and UC Berkeley. About the Empyrean Ensemble The Empyrean Ensemble presents engaging, thought-provoking, eclectic programs, enabling audiences to experience new musical sensations delivered with high artistry by its seven extraordinary core players the finest new music performers in California. Ensemble-in-residence at UC Davis, Empyrean has premiered approximately 200 works and performed throughout California, including appearances at many prominent music festivals and concert series. The ensemble is co-directed by composers Mika Pelo and Kurt Rohde. ABOUT THE DIRECTORS Swedish composer Mika Pelo writes music for soloists, chamber ensembles, and orchestras, with or without electronics. He holds a doctorate in composition from Columbia University and is currently assistant professor of composition at UC Davis. His principal composition teachers include Tristan Murail, Bent Sørensen, and Sven-David Sandström. Pelo is inspired by the French so-called spectral composers and Scandinavian lyricism and describes his method of composition as controlled dreaming. The Strad magazine thinks that Pelo s music fashions a fascinating mosaic of sonorities, and the Irish Times writes that Pelo s music is built by gestures that were once the province of the avant-garde... here pliably exploited by a sensibility that sounded decidedly romantic. Pelo s music is published by Edition Peters, Germany. Violist and composer Kurt Rohde is a recipient of the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and is the winner of the 2012 Lydian String Quartet Commission Prize. He has received commission awards from Meet the Composer-Commissioning Music/ USA, the NEA, and the Barlow, Fromm, Hanson, and Koussevitzky Foundations. He recently completed new works for eighth blackbird, the Scharoun Ensemble, pianist Genevieve Lee, and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. An associate professor of composition at UC Davis, he is a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for A graduate of the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University, the Curtis Institute of Music, and SUNY Stony Brook, Rohde studied composition with Donald Erb, Ned Rorem, and Andrew Imbrie, and viola with Karen Tuttle, John Graham, and Caroline Levine. He is former artistic director of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and has taught composition at UC Santa Barbara and was composer-in-residence at the Yellow Barn Music Festival. 9

11 Please join us for our Empyrean Ensemble Season Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center, Davis, CA Friday, February 1, :00 pm Art of Migration Kurt Rohde and Mika Pelo, directors Matilda Hofman, conductor Join us as we participate in the Music and the Art of Migration festival, sponsored by the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts and the UC Davis Department of Music. You will hear music by festival composer-in-residence Lei Liang and new music by festival participants. Lei Liang: Aural Hypothesis for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano Two works by Art of Migration Festival Composer Fellows A. W. Khumalo: ISO(R) for Flute, Clarinet, and Piano Pre-concert talk at 7:00 pm in the Yocha Dehe Grand Lobby $8 Students & Children, $20 Adults Classical Cabaret Seating Sunday, April 21, :00 pm Monteverdi and Ortiz Operas Matilda Hofman, conductor New opera is thrilling, and the Empyrean Ensemble is thrilled to be performing a concert version of our own Pablo Ortiz s Parodia alongside one of the earliest operas, Monteverdi: Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda Pablo Ortiz: Parodia Pre-concert talk at 6:00 pm in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre $8 Students & Children, $20 Adults Standard Seating Sunday, May 19, :00 pm New Music from Davis, Works for Electronics and Ensemble Kurt Rohde and Mika Pelo, directors Christian Baldini, conductor As is our tradition, the Empyrean Ensemble finishes its season with a concert of new works by the graduate composers from the UC Davis Department of Music. This year s program will feature new works for electronics and ensembles of different configurations. Works by Gabriel Bolaños Chamorro, Bryce Cannell, Alex Van Gils, William Cooper, Christopher Castro, Scott Perry, and Fang-Wei Luo Pre-concert talk at 6:00 pm in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre $8 Students & Children, $20 Adults Classical Cabaret Seating